Florida Atlantic University Fires James Tracy, Professor Who Questioned Sandy Hook Massacre

a reply to: theNLBS

Wow I feel like I just read a bio for a good portion of ATS posters. I didn't realize there was a term for this kind of thing, but I can see those traits in a good deal of conspiracy theory discussions.

a reply to: ReadLeader

I bet he won't be able to buy a gun now...legally, i.e. He may even now be on the 'no fly' list. (sarcasm...sort of.)

a reply to: Urantia1111

noted - your inability to address my first post in this thread

"You were a real Bastige. I'm glad your career is dead!"

originally posted by: Metallicus
a reply to: ReadLeader

If he were questioning the holocaust he would have been fine. Sadly, our culture now perceives questioning the official narrative a punishable offence. The thought police are alive and well in 2016.

Who the hell does the father of that dead boy think he is? What makes him so special that he can't go and photocopy a birth certificate and go get some testimonies from reputable people who'd seen the boy? FFS! How much does a stamp cost?!

It's hard to believe that the father of the dead boy could be "offended" by the profesor putting their photograhs on his webpage and calling them liars.

Something to hide?

Lets hope so or you and the prof and everbody calling him a liar will have to dig a hole and bury yourselves through shame. What else could you do after PUBLICALLY saying the man is a liar????

"thought police" lololol

a reply to: bonesymphony

Good to see empathy is alive and well. Hopefully nothing similar befalls anyone you know or care about and where they are subsequently forced to contend with people like Professor Asshole.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t

originally posted by: ugmold
a reply to: ReadLeader
You can't say a thing about the slaughter at Sandy Hook, but you are reminded of the slaughter of the Holocaust every month.

Really? I can't remember the last time I discussed the holocaust. It certainly wasn't a month ago. Maybe you should stop frequenting the websites you are frequenting and you won't be reminded of things you don't want to look at.

Who was talking about you discussing the Holocaust? There is News outside ATS, try it.

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus
a reply to: bonesymphony

Good to see empathy is alive and well. Hopefully nothing similar befalls anyone you know or care about and where they are subsequently forced to contend with people like Professor Asshole.

Lol. Sarcasm is a foreign language here?

Next time will include braille smilies a gif flag that reads "sarcasm"

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus
a reply to: ReadLeader

Correct me if I am wrong but was he not the same professor who was harassing the families of the victims?

I don't know about families, but one family was indeed involved. However the professor's letter was a response to the family in question, who had made requests to him about his website. It is all very ugly, but it seems unless the law get's involved/can get involved in that particular case??....I'm not even sure if it could be called harassment thus far.

originally posted by: bonesymphony
Next time will include braille smilies a gif flag that reads "sarcasm"

Considering how contentious this topic is a disclaimer would have been helpful.

a reply to: smurfy

Either way, it is very poor behavior on his part.

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus
a reply to: smurfy

Either way, it is very poor behavior on his part.

I think I said that already. Now there is the question of his website and what it entails, just to see where this guy is coming from, and why, my next port of call.
Just to add, I would not be a fan of any gun toting lobby, a disparate grouping who seem to have Tracy's calls as part of their ethos however disconnected. What remains here is why he was fired, "Tracy was fired for failing to file paperwork surrounding his activities outside the university by a set deadline."
I must presume that would need to include an article by Tracy, “The Sandy Hook School Massacre: Unanswered Questions and Missing Information,” written a week or so after the event, and we should bear in mind that this is a media critique person writing this, and not so much a media hound.
memoryholeblog.com...

I don't say he is right ultimately, I do say that there are salient points to be made...and that is bothersome as to the way that responsible people, will enact their responsibilities.

I don't mean to hurt anyone's feelings here but...

This isn't about not being able to question narratives. This is about reality. Sandyhook happened and it's really telling of a person's lack of grip on reality to call it a hoax. The professor needed to be fired because he is clearly incompetent not to mention cruel. Yes, cruel. Even if I questioned the reality of Sandyhook, even if I believed wholeheartedly that it did not happen... it wouldn't ever even occur to me to confront supposed parents of supposed dead children. I just don't think I could ever be so sure of something that I would feel comfortable at potentially adding another deep wound to a parent grieving their child which is a wound that doesn't ever heal.

originally posted by: theNLBS
Good. Harassing grieving parents is not cool. I think this accurately describes what's happening here.

Second Option Bias

is a well-documented phenomenon among fringe and counterculture groups in which they assume that any widely-held opinion among the general population must be untrue, and therefore, the prevailing contrary opinion must be right. It could be considered a form of "hipsterism" in which it is assumed that anything popular is wrong, but the workings behind the idea are more complex.
Second-option bias is the prevailing cause of crank magnetism and is an important mechanism in conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, and other fields where a person feels their views and ideas are being marginalized by society.

People who engage in the second-option bias believe themselves to be smarter than the general population. For this reason they assume the opinions of stupid people must themselves be stupid as well. Therefore, they reject out of hand any widely-held belief without actually examining the evidence to see if the belief is merited. In many cases, these people were first exposed to a single, potentially legitimate example of a widely-held belief that is actually mistaken. Rather than recognizing that not every issue has two diametrically opposed sides and could instead be nuanced, they instead assume that everything they have ever been taught is a lie and immediately begin seeking out contrary opinions to every conceivable topic. This inevitably leads to crank magnetism, historical revisionism, and sliding down the rabbit hole of conspiratorial belief.

That frankly, (as in your second bias option link) is the NLBS. However Tracy alludes to that as media meme in itself, where there is a need to report, first off, an action..a horrific event for instance, then the need to report that it's all under control now, done and dusted, where the fine details are by the way and just forget that, and become emotionally involved in the aftermath.

David Aaronovitch did the same thing with 9/11 as a conspiracy theory, with the big exception/angle, he uses the comfort zone, in that it is the ordinary people, who just can't take in the big picture...the real event, and replace it with an alternative, (no hipsterism there) and in the case of 9/11...the US government is the real culprit... so hat's off to David, who just happens to be a media man, The Times no less Lol!
Big fail my man, as is Mr Aaronovitch, who's theory is more of a confession as to how much of the media behave in their distribution of,' The News'.

originally posted by: Kali74
I don't mean to hurt anyone's feelings here but...

This isn't about not being able to question narratives. This is about reality. Sandyhook happened and it's really telling of a person's lack of grip on reality to call it a hoax. The professor needed to be fired because he is clearly incompetent not to mention cruel. Yes, cruel. Even if I questioned the reality of Sandyhook, even if I believed wholeheartedly that it did not happen... it wouldn't ever even occur to me to confront supposed parents of supposed dead children. I just don't think I could ever be so sure of something that I would feel comfortable at potentially adding another deep wound to a parent grieving their child which is a wound that doesn't ever heal.

He doesn't say it is a hoax, this is what the man says since you didn't read the link,

"While it sounds like an outrageous claim, one is left to inquire whether the Sandy Hook shooting ever took place—at least in the way law enforcement authorities and the nation’s news media have described."

The guy was fired for continuously causing problems for his employer which resulted in them losing a lot of money.

Try that with any employer and they will fire your ass. If they hadn't fired him he would be a special case.

a reply to: smurfy

Huge difference there.

/S

originally posted by: ugmold

originally posted by: Krazysh0t

originally posted by: ugmold
a reply to: ReadLeader
You can't say a thing about the slaughter at Sandy Hook, but you are reminded of the slaughter of the Holocaust every month.

Really? I can't remember the last time I discussed the holocaust. It certainly wasn't a month ago. Maybe you should stop frequenting the websites you are frequenting and you won't be reminded of things you don't want to look at.

Who was talking about you discussing the Holocaust? There is News outside ATS, try it.

Where did I say I was referring solely to ATS?

originally posted by: Kali74
a reply to: smurfy

Huge difference there.

/S

I gave you his embolded statement, you are free to categorise it any which way you want.
If you can't catch why he said that, then you are ignoring the depth he has gone into so far, but to say incompetence plays a part is way off beam, but then, it's easy to say that.
Undiplomatic, that he is, but there are plenty just like that.